Midweek model/miniature madness

I love me some alliteration.

Last week, classmates Liz, Beth and Whitney and I ventured outside the increasingly small bounds of Oxford on a daytrip to Bourton-on-the-Water, a tiny village in the Cotswolds. We'd heard they have a model village within their village, and since everyone likes a bit of minature fun, we thought we'd use our free day to check it out. It is funny though, becaus apparently there are several model villages throughout Europe, which is sort of the opposite of how we do in the US with things like worlds largest ball of twine, etc.

I don't think this requires excessive narration, so we'll let the pictures and captions take you through it. As ever, full photos and comments on facebook.

Bourton-on-the-water, the "Venice of the Cotswolds"...because they have a river with some bridges.

Pretty river.

Pub food for lunch! Whitney, Liz and Beth are ready to dig in.

My food. I got a shrimp scampi, chips and peas. And a weird little salad-y garnish thing.

Part of the model village.

To be an accurate model, the model village needed a model village within it. And the model within the model needed a model. And the model within the model within the model...until your brain explodes.

Fearsome womonsters.

Big person, little bridge.

Super whitney, leaping rivers in a single bound. We obviously just turned the model village into our playground and stage for a photo shoot.

There was also this museum of miniatures, many of which were pretty pervy and at a kid's eye level. This one is of the old cuckold coming home Scotland to find his missus in bed with another. Who dove under the bed backwards? And with with the bottle of wine.

Creeeepy little dolls in the school yard setting.

it was a pretty straightforward trip. Good, clean (except for the minatures) tiny fun. It left us all jumping for joy:

London bridge is... not in london.

I went to London at last! Actually, it was last month, but I've just been too lazy to write an update about it.

The lovely Alison was in town for work, and since she'd already travelled across an ocean, it was the least I could do to make the short trip to London from the Ox. London is only about 60 miles from Oxford, but the trip--with the slow pace of Oxford's streets (the medieval design is obviously not car-friendly), the many stops the bus made, and the London traffic--took about two and a half hours.

The bus dropped me off near the hotel, but since I was working off of a relatively small google map and its shoddy directions (the google directions have proved highly unreliable since I've been in the UK, and I keep ending up in crazy places), I wandered around for nearly an hour before finding my hotel, oh, three blocks from where I started. I made the climb to the fourth floor (I keep finding myself living at the top of lots of stairs, which I'm taking as a universal push to get in shape), and found my room:


Aww yeah. I liked that it was about the size of a closet and every thing was pretty basic...but they made sure there was a tea kettle and cup in the room because we are in the UK, after all.

Shortly thereafter I grabbed a cab to the West End, where I'd booked a last minute ticket to see Avenue Q. The cabbie was chatty and hilarious, telling me about how his grandfather had been hairdresser to the stars in the days of old hollywood glamour. But then when he started telling me all kinds of other stories about how he knows all these famous people who do him favo(u)rs all the time, I became a bit dubious about the validity of his stories. But really, who cares?

Anyway: Avenue Q. It struck me as strange to see an American show set in brooklyn while I was in London, but you know, whatev. I knew all the music already and had seen several of the numbers on youtube videos, but I had a great time singing along and seeing the little bits of the story that didn't make it onto the internet.

The only other thing I have to say about that experience was that some of the actors' faux-American accents were WEIRD. One guy in particular had some hybrid of texan-brooklyn-minnesotan strangeness going on that was pretty distracting (and unlike anything I've ever heard before), and it made me wonder if that's what he hears when he listens to Americans speak. It was just funny because I really hate bad british accents done by americans, but I'd never heard bad (BAD BAD) american accents done by brits. Good to know it works both ways.

Outside the Gielgud theatre.

The next day I had most of the day to wander around town until I was supposed to meet Alison at 5. So I had breakfast at a cafe just around the corner from my hotel, then meandered through Kensington gardens and Kensington palace until I reached the other side, around Albert Hall and the Royal Albert Memorial.



In the gardens near Kensington Palace...maybe waiting for Prince Harry, who sometimes hangs out there? But let's not kid, folks: his brother is way yummier.


Part of the Albert Memorial... it might be nice to be important enough that the world commemorates your life with gold statues.


I made my way to the Museum of Natural History, where I chilled with the dinos, then headed to the Victoria and Albert (there he is again) museum, where I checked out an exhibit on fashion over the past few centuries. Realizing that a) my feet hurt, b) I still had several hours until I was supposed to meet Alison and c) I hadn't had enough musical theatre (because really, can you ever?), I high tailed it back to the West End & got last minute tickets to Oliver, which served as the very british antidote to the previous evening's very american show.



You are so not supposed to take photos inside the theatre. Too bad.

More west end. Hey, mj.



Then it was off to Harrod's at long last. After what seemed like an eternity wandering around the behemoth that is that store, Alison and I found each other and had high tea. It was good food and tea, and so, so nice to see a someone from home.


Fancy china

High tea happiness

We polished off about half the food before we could be bothered to snap a photo.

Annnd that was about it. I didn't see big ben or the london eye or parliament or anything like that because a) obnoxious touristy things are definitely not as fun to do alone and b) I expect that I will have visitors (so book your effin tickets) who'll want to do those things with me in the coming months. Headed to London next weekend, actually, for the Reclaim the Night rally there, and I think we'll go down early to check out some of the markets, etc, beforehand.

That's it for now. I started this nearly an hour ago thinking I'd do a couple quick updates because I'm so far behind. So next time, I'll be shorter-winded. I'll leave you with a rather apt message from the folks at Oliver:

xx,

Amanda

Halloqueen

It's november! This is madness. We're in week four now, which means we're mid-term already.

It was a fun Halloween weekend this year--on Friday we went to a pub called the Grapes, which was decorated for the holiday, and I watched Hocus Pocus, which, as you know, holds the official title of Best Halloween Movie of All Time. Do not dispute this.

Really though it was all about the main event: Halloqueen.

At various points in the year, different colleges within the university will sponsor "bops" (which elicits images of 1950's sock hops for me every time). And though apparently Halloween is not generally a big deal amongst the over 7 set in this country, students will take any opportunity to celebrate that they can. St. Antony's hosted the Halloqueen bop: an evening of fabulosity and dressing as a gender that you normally do not. Which generally meant fellas in dresses and women in facial hair, ties, etc.

(Like this. I deeply loved my handlebar moustache and am seriously considering keeping it--or at least busting it out every once in awhile.)

This event is simultaneously a dream come true, living nightmare and sociological field day for someone who does Women's Studies. And here follows my feminist deconstruction because I can't turn it off, people. I loved the possibilities for gender bending and taking on a new persona outside the usual, boring Sexy Whatever that has become the ubiquitous halloween costume for twentysomething women; however, the other side of the coin--and what was in large part the reality of the event--was that dressing in drag didn't so much break down the gender binary as reinforce it. Though some people really did get creative and genuinely dressed as some interesting version of another gender (our Kellogg and WS crew made pretty good men, and I saw a 6 foot Marie Antoinette in full regalia), by and large the guys just dressed as the Sexy Whatevers and girls dressed as Sexy Guys.

I know that Halloween costumes aren't usually done in a serious, social commentary-focused way, but the things we do in jest say a lot about our collective ideas and attitudes. In Women's Studies we talk a lot about how people "perform" gender in how they appear, talk and behave, and Halloqueen as essentially a night of gender performance a fascinating insight into people's perceptions of what it means to be a man or a woman. When everyone's focus was on groping the "girls" or looking hyperfeminine in a Britney Spears-porn star hybrid sort of way, it made my stomach churn. And what's so scary about a woman dressing and actually looking like a man? Why is it still an expectation--even at a party where you're supposed to dress as another gender--that women need to be sexy? Dressing as a man for five hours does not necessarily shake my identity as a woman. So why does it seem to be so scary for so many people? I mean, I think I know why. But I don't like it.

Okay, and my final point (for now): there wasn't a lot of room in this event for people outside the gender binary of man/woman. We were supposed to come as the "opposite" gender, constructing the understanding that there are only two and any genderqueer or transperson was left outside. I dislike exclusion, forcing people into limited categories, etc, so that element was just no good.

I really can't turn it off. But really, this evening was a loud, sequined, over-the-top and in-your-face reminder that there's still a lot of work to be done.

Okay, despite the problems, we had a lot of fun at Halloqueen with the cheesy music and dancing well into November 1st. I was glad to spend time with college and class friends, flail around (because in truth I don't know if you can call what I do "dancing"), and let off some steam. And that's all I've got, so I'll lead you out with a couple more pictures:

The women's studies crew goes guy for the evening.

Enjoying our facial hair. Beards are good for pondering life's complexities.